Conversational Concerts
are Back!!

Sunday, February 17 at 3pm

Gabrielle Painter & Karl Lutchmayer

PROGRAMME:

Walton Sonata for Violin and Piano [1947-49]

Berners Trois Petites Marches Funèbres [1916]

Alkan Etude pour la Main Gauche Seule Op76

Busoni Second Sonata for Violin and Piano Op36a

Much refreshed, our founder and Artistic Director, Karl Lutchmayer, returns to England?s shores, with a briefcase full of thought-provoking new programmes. Having retired entirely unequal to his self-appointed mission of imparting the subtle art of irony to his American students, it comes as no surprise to find that the first half of this concert celebrates Englishness and satire.

Perhaps best remembered for Façade, the manifestation of his attachment to the Sitwells and all things satirical, Walton later developed an impassioned and brooding voice, perhaps nowhere more evident than in his rarely heard violin sonata written for Yehudi Menuhin. As for Lord Berners, where else, but at Conversational Concerts, would you have the opportuity to hear the music of the last of the gentlemen amateurs, who combined lives as a diplomat, author, painter and composer, as well as being a well-known eccentric? A beacon of British Modernism, and a friend and inspiration to the Sitwells and Walton (to whom he was also a patron), his dissonant and witty funeral marches were some of the most critically acclaimed works of any British composer of the period.

Our second half panders to Karl?s twin obsessions, opening with Alkan?s extraordinary etude for left hand alone, which he first heard in his teens, and has been summoning up the courage to play ever since! The concert ends with one of Busoni?s most haunting works, written in the shadow of the death of his mentor, Brahms, and perhaps the finest late-Romantic violin sonata of them all. All this, and cake too ? definitely an afternoon not to be missed.

Tickets £12 (concs £10)

The Warehouse, 13 Theed Street, Southbank, London SE1 8ST

Reservations and information line Tel:- 020 8690 5170 or E-mail [masked]